


Duty

by EmeraldSage



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alaska, American Civil War, American History, As in the 50 States, But everything's very abstract, Cold War, Historical Hetalia, I'm not really sure, Kinda, M/M, Mentions other Historic Events, Mpreg, Native American Character(s), Not all of them, Some pretty bitter history, United States, War of 1812, but you get the point, yup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-10-28 20:16:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10838649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmeraldSage/pseuds/EmeraldSage
Summary: Perhaps those of Europe were not born as he was.Those of Europe and of Asia, of old Africa and the beyond were different from his family.  Perhaps they were born different, he didn't know.  But then again, it was not his duty, nor his right, to know.He knew his duty.





	Duty

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as literally two hundred words three months ago, and turned into a little over 2k within twenty four hours. What.
> 
> And to be honest, I have no idea how this one came out. Really.

            Perhaps those of Europe were not born as he was.

            Those of Europe and of Asia, of old Africa and the beyond were different from his family. Perhaps they were born different, he didn't know. But then again, it was not his duty to know.

            He knew his duty.

            His mother had told he and his siblings one night, when the corn was high, the night was growing long, and the moon resplendent amongst the reverent howls of her beloved worshippers. She had told him that she had borne them, as a human mother bore their children. She told them of how her brother to the south had borne his children, their cousins. And how, one day, Gaea would choose one of them to carry on the legacy she had given their continent, and theirs alone.

            One day, once they matured, one of her children and one of her brother's children would begin to bear children. They would not be nations, as the world knew them. They would be smaller, less powerful, and they would not carry the legacy of Gaea's gift.

            There would be no method of their creation. All born of the land were creatures of Gaea and bore her blessing. The chosen bearer would know when a child was to be born; would know to seclude themselves and seek shelter amongst their people and away from those beyond their shielding oceans as their stomach rounded with child. They would be free to seek their answers; to raise their child under their own power.

            He knew his duty.

            So when one evening, after his colonizer had stormed away from the small colonial home they shared, and he’d seen the faintest hint of a curve to his stomach as he disrobed, he’d paused. He'd recalled the illness that overtook him every morning, the sudden desire for different foods, the way his temper would swing, how his mood would sour at the drop of a coin…he'd slid his hand once more against the barely noticeable curve of his stomach, and he’d _known_.

            And even as he mourned the inevitable fate that would befall him – none of Gaea’s blessed could ever remain as he was now, shackled by another of his kind in a system not his own – he’d known his duty.

* * *

           His first child was born in the dead of the night, when the moon was high in the starless sky and the winds blew a cold rattle through the grove they’d settled in. One of his tribes had given him shelter, several of their warriors prowling the perimeter of the birthing space as the women and the healers eased him through the pain of the birth. The children had not been allowed, but he could hear them rustling in the trees nearby. They would not be kept away, he knew. They had been like this at his own birth.

            As he knew his duty, they knew theirs.

            He’d screamed himself hoarse as his body convulsed; each contraction, each wave of pain had struck him like a buffalo charging the flank of horse, only impossibly _more_. The healers had kept him as calm as they could, and lookouts had been sent further outwards, to the farthest reaches of his voice, to keep an eye out for the white men who would come searching for the screams amidst the forest.

            But for the most part, they couldn’t help.

            “The first is the hardest,” the eldest healer whispered to him, when his screams had quieted briefly as his body sought respite, her gentle hands stroking his sweat-soaked hair, “but you will survive. You must be strong. You _are_ strong. You are the land.”

            He was the land, and he knew his duty.

            His first child was born in the dead of the night, the howl of her healthy wail carried on the wind to the farthest reaches of his mother’s continent, proclaiming to all the success of her birth. And even as he felt the land rejoice, even as he could feel the weight of his siblings’ regard turn to him in a moment of _unadulteredshockjoyhappinesfamily_ …he knew he couldn’t rest yet.

            His colonizer was searching for him desperately, angrily. His people were stirring, increasingly angry, focused, determined in a way that dried his throat and sent his heart racing as he tasted _change_ in the rising gale. Things were being brought to a precipice from which he couldn’t turn away.

            He stroked his daughter’s face, watching the tiny little being scrunch up her nose even as the wind around them calmed and the land hummed in contentment. He thought of the riotous actions of his people, only barely constrained, of the split in loyalties growing into an abyss, of the tons of tea sinking into the bottom of his harbor. And even as he let the words of wonder and joy from his tribes fill his ears, let himself sink into Gaea’s blessed embrace as he drifted to sleep, a deep sated determination woke, bitterness not long off.

            He knew his duty.

* * *

           The White House was burning, his heart was screaming, and he was running.

            He’d nearly collapsed within the tunnels of the White House when the match-lit flames caught on the walls of the building, and it was only the support of the Lieutenant who’d come with him that ensured he’d been able to make it outside of the building.

            Outside where the redcoats waited for him. Outside where venomous green eyes sought him. He’d yanked the poor young soldier down into the underbrush the moment he’d seen them, heedless of the pain, and barked an order in his smoke-parched throat to _crawl_ damn it. They had to leave.

            They’d made it to the hill overlooking the inferno before he felt the weight of an acid green stare on his back. It was instinct that had him lashing out, snagging the poor soldier and dragging him down only seconds before a bullet rocketed through the air where he’d been standing just before. He glanced over his shoulder, shoving the younger soldier onwards, and for a split second, viridian eyes held him captive.

            He could feel it, in that moment. He could feel the leash slipping around his throat, tightening at the collar as those eyes _glowed_ with intent he couldn’t escape. He felt the betrayal that broiled and roiled in that slim, powerful frame; he could feel the desire for vengeance, the possessiveness that stymied the softness, and the fondness that had once resided in that being. He could feel the feather-light chains he’d once worn slide across his body, binding and firm.

            His eyes shuttered closed, and the feeling slipped away.

            He knew his duty.

            He dragged up the poor, hapless Lieutenant who’d had the misfortune to be paired up with him, and ran for their safety. For his safety, for his people’s safety…for his children’s safety. For their freedom, even with green eyes glaring at him through the arid, smoke filled air.

* * *

           The swell was barely noticeable, and he deliberately ignored the soft concern of his siblings whispering in on the wind. _They_ knew he was expecting, just as they knew what he was planning, but he could care less. The sun beat a cruel, baking tattoo on the back of his neck, where the exposed skin seared uncomfortably, but he bore it with ease. It wouldn’t harm him for long, after all. The same couldn’t be said of his people.

            His dear people. They were _his_ , no matter that they didn’t look or act like the white men and women who’d sought refuge on his shores. And his boss would _dare_ act against the Constitution – enshrined in his mind, the system that held his country together – and commit what would essentially be called _genocide_. On _his_ people – oh, he couldn’t _stand_ it.

            He’d stormed from the White House, from the capital, and from the frantic voice of his government calling, _commanding_ him back. He was the land, and he obeyed no one but the will of his people. Elected official or not, no president had that sway over him. He would never allow it.

            He’d disappeared into the mire of the system, reappearing outside his president’s awareness, walking with his people – his beloved, wonderful, imperfect people, who had cared for him as they had his mother – trying his best to help where he could. He forced himself to watch, to suffer as they did. And he did.

            Exhaustion took so many, where they stumbled, fell, and couldn’t bear to stand again, even when he reached over to lift them up. Hunger beat their numbers down, and disease took even more. And still, he refused to leave. One of the eldest living healers amongst the forced migrants liked to walk with him. She’d eye him carefully as the days went by, critically as disease struck him down one day until the land revived him, warning blaring in his mind. She watched the way the white men watched him, _knowing_ they knew something was off. She helped him adjust his clothes to conceal the growing swell of his abdomen – the telltale sign of his blessing. She helped him, and he helped her, and they walked together to spit in the face of the government and _survive_.

            The Oklahoma Territory was born with the lightly bronzed skin he’d once worn, eyes of tree bark and a smile that caused something in his heart to _ache_ and clamor for joy all the same. The babe would grow, would _survive_ , would _thrive_ against all odds, and he felt a vicious sense of satisfaction well up in his core.

            And when the white men guarding the march finally received word about who the mysterious stranger was, with hair of amber wheat and sky eyes that dared them to approach, they dragged him from his people, kicking and screaming and swearing at them in a tongue that all but the eldest of his people had forgotten. His child was in his arms but his heart was bleeding, and his people were torn from him.

            But above all, he knew his duty.

* * *

           His children were fighting each other, and he couldn’t stop them.

            Day in and day out, they fought. They tore at each other viciously, ripping their people and their shared lands apart in the process. His darling firstborn had nearly caused him to miscarry, when it was proven that the child soon to be born would be a twin of equal power to his eldest. Her land would split – half to her new sibling, and half that would remain in her keeping – and she would be weakened, and thought there was regret in her eyes at his pain, there had been no remorse.

            The others fled his watching eyes. Out, they went, into the wilds of his lands, where the frontiers lay and the armies waited, watching. His president’s wife smoothed his hair down as he watched them leave, her gentle care an aching balm on the vicious hole that had ripped apart in his heart. His boss no longer trusted any others with his safety, and had demanded that he remain in the capital until the war – _the Civil War_ , his people whispered behind his back, voices tense and hushed – blew through. It would be easy, oh _so_ easy, to obey the command; to think of himself and his health for once. But…

            He knew his duty.

            He waited until a gap in the tension – until the guard was low and easing, keeping people out more than keeping him in – and slipped his watch. His mother’s lessons in his ear, he made his way out west, one hand curling dangerously close to the slight swell of his abdomen. He needed to seek the healers of old, and he knew just where to go.

            He settled on the ever-shifting line, the border where his children collided. He dressed in white, tended to the injured who came his way, regardless of which side they claimed allegiance to. They were all his, in his eyes.

            Rumors spread, of the mystery medic – the healer who healed with knowing eyes, who sung songs older than the Republic, older than the Empire they’d fledged from, and comforted even the most angry of men who sought shelter under his kind smile. His people found him once more, drawn, as they always had been, to the core of who he was: theirs.

            He miscarried several times, the grief of each time ripping anew the hole in his heart as the land reclaimed the too-small little bodies, the blood-soaked ground he couldn’t bear to think on. And his people came, flocked to him in droves, after the miscarriages, stealing his attention, demanding his heart, and he gave it to them gladly.

            And one day, while he wove stories to the young men and women who’d sought the safety of his hearth, his children slipped into view. They were battered, bloody, and tired. But they held each other up silently, arms firm around each other as they grouped together and knelt at his fireside.

            He smiled, warm and loving as the war within him calmed at last. His children were his duty, but he loved them in a manner that could never be feigned. A duty, a pleasure, and a blessing; and he _knew_ this is what his mother had spoken of.

* * *

           The first time he’d conceived a child the way most humans did, it was when the world trembled with the weight of their fear, balancing the threat of two superpowers dueling, dancing, and taunting each other across a fine line that even they dared not cross.

            There had been no warning, no sign or tremble of anticipation. He hadn’t felt it in the core of his people – the sway of sentiment, the sudden awareness of another people he’d never felt before – hadn’t had time to seek an answer for what would come. He’d gone up to the northernmost reaches of his land seeking a moment’s peace from a war that drew from him more than just energy and resources.

            He missed his good friend – the one who’d joke with him, who’d taught him to waltz, and who’d shown him beauty in things no one had seen them in before – but nothing could be done right now to fix it. Thinking of the glaring violets he’d stared down at the meeting room table, remembering the tension that had escalated to an almost cloying, claustrophobic feeling as they’d traded veiled insults and only the vaguest of courtesies befitting their status as the two opposing world powers…it ached. He’d wondered idly then, how an Empire like his former colonizer could handle such a whirlwind of emotions, such a constant back and forth in his allies, his cherished ones, and his list of implacable enemies.

            He certainly wasn’t suited for it. Not at all.

            He loved with a heart to big for himself, for his children and his siblings. He had enough love to give the world, the world that didn’t want him.

            But he was a superpower. He was a bearer. He was a nation. And he knew his duty.

            Of course, even duty hadn’t prepared him to encounter his rival near the old Alaskan log cabin they’d once built together, in the days where they’d been friends, good friends, almost _more_ , and yet…he didn’t falter. They’d spoken with angry words, and upset hearts, but never raised their voice. They didn’t dare taint the home of pleasant memories past with the violence of now and forevermore – _gods please, not forevermore, not that long_ – and instead, the heat of rivalry turned into a different kind of heat. A kind of heat that, despite bearing over two score of children, he had no experience with.

            His violet-eyed enemy took great pleasure in taking advantage of that fact. Not that he minded much at all. It was only later that he realized what he’d set in motion.

            He was a superpower. He was a nation. But he was also a bearer, and if he forgot, his body always remembered. He knew his duty.

            It only took one moment. One moment, when he was on the verge of falling asleep in his enemy’s soothing embrace, and suddenly the world slid out of focus as it had countless times before. His breath hitched, and for the first time, he _felt_ the spark catch in the core of his very being, and he _knew_ what it meant.

            Oh. _Oh_.

            A hand slid down his front, coming to rest on his still-flat abdomen, and he could practically taste the confusion that colored the nation behind him. And that’s when he realized…he could feel it too.

            He was a superpower. He was a nation. He was a bearer.

            He was pulled closer until they were pressed together with no space for even air between them. A hand pressed lightly on the surface of his abdomen, where the little state was sheltered, and he looked over his shoulder into deep violets of his once-friend, now enemy, just in time to see a sudden burst of understanding light up those eyes.

            _Oh_.

            Words whispered soothingly in his ear, a grip far too possessive secured around his waist, and a lullaby his mother once sang resonated in the air.

            _Oh_.

* * *

           They were beautiful.

            All fifty of his bright, beautiful, bountiful blessings stood before him, dressed in their own trappings. They were bright-eyed, grinning, and the promise of wonder and hope and of the _future_ drew their chins up stubbornly. They pulled him into their embrace, and refused for one instant to let him flounder in the sea of children born from Gaea’s blessing.

            They were bright. They were beautiful. They were of the land. They were his.

            He was a superpower. He was a bearer. He was the land, and they were his duty.

            But this duty had never been as much a duty as it had been a pleasure.

**Author's Note:**

> Did you have fun?


End file.
